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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Last few weeks of my job search has been a complete mess! I have been looking for work for quite some time now and its not that I didn't get any but for some reason or other things are either getting delayed or cancelled. I was managing with that so far but the last week was the heights of madness! I had multiple interviews on most days of the week and some of them were really crappy! Not all of it my fault though! Some of the interviewer didn't even know what they wanted. Long story short, I got really annoyed and frustrated , decided to “leave the gun take the cannoli ” (The Godfather). Turned off my computer, no phones, emails just cooking and baking with my favourite Gu chocolate cookbook. This is my second recipe from the book. The first one was the Chocolate Mousse Cake.

Have you ever tried beating egg whites till soft peaks by hand? I did, it was therapeutic at that time. My suggestion to you is, try it but only when you are very angry and you only have those poor egg whites in front of you to beat the heck out of them. Else use the electric blender!

Ingredients: (The recipe is from the Gu chocolate cookbook, well almost!)

For the sponge/lady fingers

50 gm plain flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

3 Egg whites

50 gm sugar

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

For the Mascarpone mousse

250 gm Mascarpone cheese (book recipe suggests 500gm but couldn't get to the shops to get another tub so managed with this)

50 gm sugar

1 egg yolk

2 tbsp coffee liquor

250 ml whipping cream (book recipe suggests 200 ml, since I was running short on cream cheese, I tried to manage with this)

Started off with separating 3 eggs. All egg whites in one bowl, 2 yolks in another one and the reserve the third yolk for later use in the mousse.

For making the sponge, pre heat the oven at 170 degree C and line a 25x30 cm baking tray. Spray or brush some oil in to it. Mix the cocoa powder and the flour together and keep. Beat the egg whites till soft peaks.Add the sugar and continue to beat until it looks like shaving foam. Lightly beat the two yolks and add them to the whites. Mix well. Now Add the flour mix in to the egg-sugar mix and beat well. Pour the mixture in the baking tray evenly and bake for 8-10 minutes or until you touch the top and it bounce back. Leave it to cool down and the cut them in to roughly 3x12 cm fingers.

Now for the mascarpone mousse put all the ingredients under that list in to a bowl and blend till it forms soft peaks.

All cooking done now comes the building part of this divine dessert. In a shallow bowl mix the first two ingredient of the third list. Get your serving dish, I used a 20 cm square glass dish, you can also use individual serving dishes. Dip the sponge fingers (half the quantity of total) one by one in the liquid and line them in the base of the serving dish. This should be quick so that you don’t end up with soggy bottom.

Cover layer #1 with half the mascarpone mousse. That’s your layer #2 . Melt the dark chocolate bar with double cream and add the coffee liquor when melted (the next 3 items in the building list) Now, for Layer #3 you can either simply dust cocoa powder or pour the chocolate ganache I just made. Layer #4 and #5 are same as Layer #1 and #2. Once done, try to smooth the top as much as you can, cover the top(make sure it doesn’t touch the cheese top) and leave it in the fridge to set overnight.

Just before serving, dust the top with cocoa powder and grated chocolate and carefully place some dark chocolate covered espresso beans on top. Now sit back relax and enjoy every spoonful of this divine dessert!